Time is running out to prepare for new curriculum, say Alberta teachers

As of September, students from kindergarten to 3^and year will follow the new curriculum in English, mother tongue, and mathematics. The new physical education program will also be taught to all students from kindergarten to 6^and year.

Since it was introduced to the public, the new curriculum has drawn criticism from parents, teachers and experts due to its content being deemed inappropriate at times and due to the shift to knowledge-based learning rather than skills.

It really feels like a mad dash to the finish linesays Jennifer Flontek, who teaches physical education at Beaumont. We were inundated with information, but we had really little time to prepare.

She doesn’t blame her school board. Rather, she believes the provincial government has not done enough to support teachers through the transition.

A busy program

In addition, many questions remain unanswered, particularly regarding the integration of all the new material contained in the new program. The new physical education program includes, among other things, a section on sex education and another on financial literacy, in which students will learn, for example, how to make a budget.

A teacher at the primary level has an average of 3 sessions of 30 minutes per week to teach physical educationexplains Glenn Wilson, a physical education teacher at École Léo Nickerson in Saint-Albert.

” To add on top of that all the other things like financial literacy, it’s almost impossible. »

He is sure to arrive ready for the next school year, but this will require that he and his colleagues develop a plan to distribute some of the additional content between the different subjects.

Several school boards will be undertaking similar exercises over the coming months. However, the process is far from uniform and the results are likely to be very different from one school to another.

Jennifer Flontek worries, for her part, that the program may be more difficult to implement in schools that cannot count on a teacher specialized in physical education.

Several school boards have piloted the new program and that’s not what we heardreplied Thursday, the Minister of Education Adriana Lagrange when asked if certain content will have to be abandoned to make room for new material.

The vast majority of school boards boycotted the piloting of the program. Data obtained through a freedom of information request shows that 177 classes have tested the new physical education program.

Limited resources for Francophones

Right now teachers are not ready to teach this new curriculumsays the president of the Association of Francophone Teachers of Alberta, Stéfane Kreiner.

He also deplores the lack of teaching materials in French available at the moment. Less than a dozen documents are mentioned on the province’s website, compared to several hundred in English.

Stéfane Kreiner, who teaches in 4^and year at Discovery School, fears that his colleagues will not have enough time to prepare for the arrival of the new program.

” I’m afraid that some teachers will do that this summer, on their personal vacation time. »

Department of Education spokesperson Katherine Stavropoulos acknowledges that the educational resources available are limited, at this time.

However, she recalls that 3.5 million dollars have been released to remedy this imbalance. A portion of these funds will go to the Federation of Francophone School Boards of Alberta to work closely with the ministry and council to provide resources [éducatives] in French as soon as possible.

There are also concerns about the reorganization of content between different grade levels. Some concepts will be taught earlier, which could be difficult for students, says Stéfane Kreimer. In mathematics, fractions will, for example, be taught in 1^D year rather than 4^and year.

The adaptation for pupils who started their schooling in the old program is also of concern to teachers.

The students of the second year will not have the preliminary lessons that they would have had in the first year in the new programsaid Alberta Teachers’ Association spokesperson Elissa Corsi.

Province plans new math and English programs to be taught to all K-6 students^and year starting with the start of the 2023 academic year. In the same year, the arts, sciences, French immersion and French, mother tongue programs will also be taught.